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The Weight of Water
Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 22 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 22
  3. Negative: 3 out of 22
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  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Loren King
    75
    Despite the deftness with which Bigelow handles the transitions, the modern story never attains the intrigue and tension of the period tale.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    67
    In the heaving cross-century swirl of the climax, ''Weight'' makes its point: Jealousy is timeless; Hurley is not.
  3. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    67
    The insistent crosscutting suggests there is something powerful between the two stories, but apart from vague connections of jealousy, emotional tension and conversations that constantly dance around the real issues, they don't resonate across the years.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Janice Page
    63
    Though it never rises to its full potential as a film, still offers a great deal of insight into the female condition and the timeless danger of emotions repressed.
  5. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    60
    It's an intelligently made (and beautifully edited) picture that at the very least has a spark of life to it -- more than you can say for plenty of movies that flow through the Hollywood pipeline without a hitch.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    60
    There is so much to admire in The Weight of Water, Kathryn Bigelow's churning screen adaptation of a novel by Anita Shreve, that when the movie finally collapses on itself late in the game, it leaves you in the frustrating position of having to pick up its scattered pieces and assemble them as best you can.
  7. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    50
    The actors are splendid, especially Sarah Polley and Sean Penn, but we never feel confident that these two plots fit together, belong together, or work together.
  8. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    50
    The book has been altered in mostly reasonable ways to suit the needs of the screen, but what it loses in the translation is invaluable in comprehending what led someone to pick up an ax and wipe out two-thirds of an island's population.
  9. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Megan Lehmann
    50
    All the elements are in place for an entertaining murder mystery, but as Bigelow meanders aimlessly back and forth through time, the plot becomes increasingly water-logged.
  10. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    50
    Shows glimmers of great drama, but jettisons too much essential cargo (character development, relationships, plot, common sense) in an effort to be lean and clean.
  11. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Carla Meyer
    50
    Involves two mysteries -- one it gives away and the other featuring such badly drawn characters that its outcome hardly matters. But the picture looks great.
  12. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    50
    Contains multiple ax murders, lesbianism, incest, a hanging, and a storm at sea -- yet, despite all of this seemingly enticing material, it's a bore.
  13. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    50
    The two stories never come close to meshing the way the filmmaker intended. The result is a well-acted movie that simply doesn't gel.
    All this critic's reviews
  14. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    50
    As a director, Bigelow knows how to get out of the house, but she can be impatient when it comes to humdrum reality. That may account for her interest in Shreve's novel, with its epic tragedies, and it may help to explain the misguided casting of Penn and Hurley, each of whom comes equipped with an oversized personality.
  15. Variety
    Reviewed by: Emanuel Levy
    50
    Despite recurrent narrative and dramatic problems, each of Bigelow's pics provides a visual treat, and this film is no exception.
  16. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    50
    Whereas "Posession" was relatively light on its feet, this is so overloaded from the outset that it can only sink.
  17. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    40
    Penn, in particular, is so subdued he's hardly there, while Hurley's seductive, hyper-articulate Adaline is actually ludicrous, sucking suggestively on ice cubes and reciting poetry like a phone-sex operator pretending to be a book-reading babe.
  18. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    40
    Perhaps because the present-day characters are such insufferable twits -- especially the brooding Penn, who's given to tossing around stanzas by Yeats and Dylan Thomas -- the modern story feels like a device, a flimsy entrée into events that would be better accessed directly.
  19. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    40
    Lovingly detailed but unaccountably clumsy, obviously ambitious, and unfortunately chintzy. It's also genuinely anachronistic.
  20. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ron Stringer
    30
    Provides an unfulfilled promise of pleasure (providing one doesn't cave in to the spectacle of bare-chested Elizabeth Hurley sucking on an ice cube) in this heavy-handed exercise in time-vaulting literary pretension.
  21. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Bill Gallo
    30
    Means to be heavy in terms of psychology, provocation and the examination of emotion, but it sinks like a stone the minute it hits the surface.
  22. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Ross Williams
    20
    Dreadful.
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